The Washington Post published an article titled “The world is choking on screens. Just as this book foretold.” This book refers to Neil Postman’s classic “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” which this article refers to as a basis to criticize the impact and harm of social media on our lives. In our daily lives, more and more fragmented information enters our feeds through the media. The speed at which this information spreads has desensitized us to even the most serious social issues — war, politics, law and more — leading to the phenomenon of suffering being turned into entertainment.
As one passage notes, “There are no kings but no subjects, either. We are each kings unto ourselves.” As Postman predicted in “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” the rise of screen media has transformed public discourse into entertainment, desensitizing us to tragedy, weakening our sense of authentic identity, and ultimately eroding trust in social relationships.
To understand the impact of the particular medium in which we receive information on the current political state, it helps to revisit Marshall McLuhan’s famous line, “the medium is the message.” His student, Postman, built upon his teacher’s statement to propose “the medium is metaphor,” which further explains the current social landscape.
First, McLuhan believed that, in our civilization, what truly matters is not the information we receive but the medium through which we receive it. People ultimately obtain the information they want and seek, so how we obtain it becomes key. Each medium provides unique linguistic symbols for thinking and expressing emotions.
Postman’s metaphor means that the technology medium is not neutral; accepting it implies supporting its ideology A classic example is the printing press, whose emergence rendered the clergy’s monopoly on knowledge obsolete, destroying religious hegemony.
Throughout history, the dominant medium of each century has shaped the public in more than one way. Consider today’s most popular platforms — TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X — they all focus on quickly capturing attention in short bursts. As a result, most videos or texts resort to various forms of quick entertainment to attract users. For example, a series of murders is adapted into a global entertainment show, a YouTuber laughs at a suicide victim’s body and war-torn countries are turned into memes. When violent events are turned into entertainment, tragedies lose their gravity and people gradually become desensitized to events that deserve attention in society.
The role of the media is to be the rule-setter and pusher. The algorithmic recommendation mechanism tends to push content with high numbers of likes and engagement, so simple, intuitive, fast-paced and emotionally charged videos are more likely to be seen. In contrast, long videos and texts with in-depth analysis are rarely recommended, and many users lack the patience to read them.
While tragedy turns into spectacle, screens also turn the self into a performance. When we look at various media sources on our screens, we are not acting as sympathizers but as audience members. The media trains us to like, share and comment on content, and gradually we transition from spectators to consumers. Much of the media is based on consumerism. To be seen and recognized within this system, we begin to play a role — and thus we become social media content ourselves. We are no longer just individuals but rather an image, a character surviving in front of the lens. Over time, many no longer know what the true “I” looks like.
When everyone is performing online, trust between people and the media thins. In a world where the vast majority of interactions take place through media, intimacy seems out of reach because everyone is playing an idealized role that is publicly accepted; yet, the very act of pretending creates a sense of alienation. Trust issues between the public, leaders, family members and among friends will become increasingly severe if we do not change the way we use the flawed social media apps.
As humans in the 21st century, we cannot live without the media, but we need to be aware of its corrosive effect on our mental structure, especially for children. The decay of the soul is not instantaneous; it is the result of repeated compromises made in front of the screen. People need to establish more authentic means of expression, information restraint and space for self-reflection.
Lynn Lin is an Opinion Intern for the summer 2025 quarter. She can be reached at baoyinl1@uci.edu.
Edited by Isabella Ehring
